'1t

Hegemonic Rivalry

From Thucydidesto the Nuclear Age

EDITED BY

Richard Ned Lebowand Barry S. Strauss

Westview PressBOULDER • SAN FRANCISCO • OXFORD

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12National Ideology and Strategic

Defense of the Population,from Athens to Star Wars

Josiah Ober

On March 23, 1983, President Ronald Reagan gave a televised speechto the American public in which he proposed that the United Statesbegin working to develop a space-based "peace shield"-a system ofstrategic defenses that would "intercept and destroy strategic ballisticmissiles before they reached our own soil or that of our allies." Thegoal of the system would be to "give us the means of rendering thesenuclear weapons impotent and obsolete" and "eliminat[e] the threatposed by strategic nuclear missiles." 1 Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative(SDI)-dubbed "Star Wars" by the proposed system's detractors-hassince become a major factor in American defense planning and diplomacy.Most SOl planners envision a limited system in which only the mostimportant military targets would be defended.2 The version that hasbeen marketed to the American public, however, both in Reagan's initialspeech and by' private groups advocating SDI, is a strategic defense ofthe population: a system which, once fully implemented, would safeguardthe residents and the economic infrastructure of the United States fromnuclear attack.3 The version of SOl in which the American public hasbeen encouraged to believe is a true grand strategy of preclusivepopulation defense. ,.

The literature on Star Wars is vast, but the psychological impact ofpreclusive defenses on popular opinion and on decision making by na­tionalleaders has not been taken enough into consideration. The problemis best approached historically, since although technologies change, thereare apparent continuities in the interaction of public opinion and policywithin democratic polities. A consideration of the impact on classicalAthens of the development and deployment of preclusive population

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defense systems points out the complex interplay between defensivestrategy and national ideology. The history of Athenian defense strategyin the ,fifth and fourth centuries B.C. suggests that a national militarypolicy based on a grand strategy of preclusive defense can lead to bothideological and technological problems and helps to explain why theseproblems may not be fully recognized by the system's designers or by itssupposed beneficiaries. Furthermore, the Athenian example suggests thatpreclusive defense systems can destabilize power regimes regardless ofwhether the system was built for genuinely defensive purposes (as SOlproponents claim) or to mask aggressive plans (as some critics of SOlclaim).. The Athenian example helps to explain the role of offensive anddefensive innovation in destabilizing international power regimes and inexpanding and intensifying hot conflicts. Ultima~ely, analysis of howAthenian public opinion conditioned foreign policy options may offer achallenge to the classical Realist sch~ol of international relations theory.4

Some may object at the outset that the unique strategic function ofnuclear weapons renders all pre-nuclear age history irrelevant to dis­cussions of international relations.s But, while admitting that the modernsituation indeed presents some unparalleled features, I believe that thereis a very real danger in abandoning history when thinking about inter­national relations. Those who fail to take the past into consideration tendto regard their own attitudes, biases, and modes of thought-in short,their ideology-as objective and as capable of arriving at objective truth.Consequently, they may fail to recognize the limits that their ownideological presuppositions impose upon the range of options to whichthey are able to give serious attention. Ideology, as I have defined it here,is inescapable and dangerous because it tends to be invisible: MichelFoucault has emphasized that ideology is not simply prejudice that canbe shed through exercise of the rational will, but is structured into thediscourse and power structure of every society.6 If Foucault is correct,strategists and planners are wrong to assume that their conclusions canbe completely rational or free from extraneous influences, because thevery form of their thought is predetermined by the ideology of the'societyin which they live. Studying the past may offer a partial corrective. Theideology of past societies tends, over time, to become more opaque andso is subject to analysis and interpretation. Historical studies can thereforereveal the ways in which strategic choice molds national ideology andcan reveal how that ideology in turn conditions strategic decision making.

THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR (431-404 B.C.)

Thucydides emphasized that the Peloponnesian War pitted Atheniansea power against Spartan land power.7 This situation entailed offensive

capability inequality. The Athenians could use their superior navy toraid the Peloponnesian coast and to interfere with overseas trade bymembers of the Peloponnesian League, but they could not do muchdirect damage to Sparta's home territory.8 For their part, the Peloponne­sians could mar~h upon and occupy the home territory of Athens. TheAthenians could not prevent the occupation unless the Athenian landarmy could defeat the Peloponnesians in open battle. Given the superiornumbers of the Peloponnesian infantry and the superior military trainingof the Spartans, this was not a likely scenario, and both sides knew it.The disparity of means by which offensive military power could bedeployed was certainly a primary reason why many Spartans andPeloponnesians believed the war would be short and must inevitablyend in Athenian surrender.9 .

Athenian strategists had to devise a way to deflect the effects of thedirect application of offensive land power by the Peloponnesians onAthens. The solution to the problem was found in fortifications. Giventhe inferiority of fifth-century siegecraft, the massive Athenian long wallfortified complex (the Athens-Piraeus long walls) offered a cOIJ)pletelysecure bastion behind which the Athenians could defend themselvesagainst Spartan military forces. to By protecting the population of Attica,the fortification complex could potentially balance the power equationin a protracted war with a superior land power. But we do not actuallyknow whether that was the original intended function of the fortificationcomplex.

The city wall of Athens was rebuilt after the Persian Wars (480-79B.C.), and the long walls to Piraeus were completed in the 450s.11 Neitherthe strategic views of the architects who planned the walls nor thoseof the citizens who approved the plans in the Athenian assembly areknown. It may be the case that the original motivation behind wallbuilding was aggressive: to create a secure bastion that would allowAthens to launch attacks without fear of effective retaliation. But it isunnecessary to presume a priori that most Athenians in the decadesbefore the Peloponnesian War had rationally thought through the rolethe walls might play in' a major war. Many Athenians may well haveregarded building t~e long walls as part of the normal (for the period)"tactical" military preparations of the city: a factor in fighting the enemyindeed, but not intended to permanently protect the entire populationof the state. Pre-Peloponnesian War Greek warfare was highly formalizedand emphasized personal bravery and collective fortitude rather thanstrategic insight.12 It was ordinarily assumed that enemy invaders wouldbe challenged to a fair fight in the open field by the national levy ofthe invaded state. City and harbor walls ensured that towns could notbe captured by surprise; they allowed the national army to' prepare in

an unhurried manner to meet the enemy in the field. In the case ofdefeat in the field, the defenders could retreat to a place of safety, andthe negotiations with the victorious enemy could be carried on in anatmosphere of relative tranquillity.

Pericles, however, recognized that the urban fortification complex heldthe potential to serve a comprehensive role in protecting the Athenianpopulation and essential Athenian economic resources against the superiorPeloponnesian land army. Pericles argued that if all the Athenians inAttica retreated within the walls, they need not engage the Spartan­Peloponnesian land army in battle. The Spartans could ravage the landoutside the walls, but extraurban property was strategically nonessentialin light of the ability of Athens' navy to convoy supplies to the portat Piraeus. Imports could be paid for with accumulated surpluses andimperial revenues.13 Thus, Sparta's military migl,t would be renderedimpotent. Since the Spartans could not hope to assault the wallssuccessfully, the Athenians inside the city would be insulated from thedeployment of Spartan power, provided they were able to ignore damagedone by invaders to property outside the walls. The city wall defenseplan required considerable sacrifices on the part of the Athenian ruralpopulation-over half, perhaps three quarters, of the total citizen pop­ulation. Given Athens' democratic constitution, Pericles' strategic planrequired the acquiescence and cooperation of the rural population.Thucydides implies that Pericles had some difficulty in persuading someAthenians to accept this view of the fortifications as a retreat for thepopulation and in getting them to stick by his strategic vision duringthe first Peloponnesian invasion in 431.14 But in the end Pericles wonout. His grand strategy for the Peloponnesian War, based on sea powerto control the empire combined with strategic defense of the populationwithin the urban complex, confounded the Spartans for several years.

Pericles' strategy radically altered the use of force in Greek internationalrelations. The physical obstacle represented by stone and brick fortifi­cations effectively stymied the deployment of military force by humanagents who lacked the technological means to overcome the obstacle.Thucydides was intensely aware of the role fortifications played ininterfering with the deployment of force. In the introductory section ofhis history, Thucydides emphasizes the part that fixed defenses playedin the origins of civilization: before men built defensive walls aroundtheir settlements, there could be no civilized life, because wanderingtribes and pirates could easily overwhelm undefended settlements. Onlyafter the development of fortifications could a civilization based onoverseas transport flourish.15 The highly positive assessment of Pericles'career in Book 2 implies that Thucydides regarded Pericles' strategy asrational and capable of leading to victory.16

But, with the aid of hindsight, Thucydides came to see the role playedby fortifications in international relations rather differently than didPericles. The latter seems to have supposed that his new defensivestrategy would simply amputate Spartan power, by denying the Spartansan object they could affect through the deployment of the most importanttype of offensive military force (infantry trained to fight in open plainsin hoplite formation) at their disposal. For Pericles, the walls were animmovable object which would demonstrate that Spartan military powerwas far from being an unstoppable force. Thucydides ultimately rec­ognized that the interaction between the deployment of offensive forceand defenses could have results that were rather more complex thanthat.

Power and lust for power, for Thucydides, were inevitable productsof human nature and of inequalities in strength. Once the artificialconstraints of conventional morality and ethics had been stripped away,power, exercise'd through the threat or the application of force, flowedfrom the stronger and swept away the objections of the weaker, ratherlike the action of a river which naturally flows downhill and carriesbefore it lesser obstacles. 17 Drawing out the river metaphor, a Thucydideanview of power might visualize fixed defenses as large, irregularly shapedboulders that fall into the stream of power: impediments that distortand redirect the stream. Thucydides emphasizes the turbulence by drawingthe reader's attention to several incidents when superior Peloponnesianforces were unable to stot:m fortified positions, notably at the sieges ofOinoe, Plataea, and Pylos. In these cases and others, the fortificationswere ultimately unable to stop the flow of power, but the turbulenceresulting from the long and futile sieges led to significant consequences:notably the reinforcement of an Athenian conviction that the Spartanswere militarily impotent. This convic~ion in turn helped to short-circuitefforts to end hostilities and encouraged the Athenians to expand thewar. The consequences arising from the strategic use of fortificationswere among those elements of chance which Thucydides claimed werethe natural products of war, elements beyond the ability of anyone­even the far-sighted Pericles-to foresee or understand. 18

Pericles could create an apparently rational grand strategy, but hecould not control the results of. the impact of that strategy on Athenianpublic opinion, on Spartan decision-making, or on natural processes(e.g., the spread of the plague within the city). As a result of theuncontrollable physical and ideological effects of Pericles' defensive grandstrategy, the Peloponnesian War took a series of surprising turns andexpanded to involve the entire eastern Mediterranean world.

A developing appreciation on the part of both the Athenians and theSpartans for the strategic potential of fortifications was a major factor

254Josiah Ober National Ideology and Strategic Defense 255

in the war, and Thucydides gives this factor a significant role in hisnarrative. The defense of Athenian Oinoe and of the pro-Athenian townof Plataea by small garrisons against much· larger besieging forces werecase studies in the strength of fixed defenses against traditional Greekoffensive siege tactics. 19 The Athenian construction of a fortified positionat Pylos on the coast of Spartan-held Messenia in 425, combined withthe Spartan infantrymen's inability to carry out a successful frontalassault on even a makeshift fortification, led directly to the Atheniancapture of Spartan soldiers on Sphakteria Island. Athenian possessionof Spartan hostages forced a temporary halt in Spartan military incursionsinto Attica, but Spartan power continued to flow and thus the warspread to different theaters.2o The Spartan general Brasidas succeededin capturing fortified coastal cities of the Athenian empire in northernGreece; his indirect strategy for putting pressure on' Athens and his useof economic coercion to force the northern cities into submission fore­shadowed Spartan operations during the Ionian War. 21 In 424 a defeatedAthenian army in Boeotia fell back on makeshift fortifications at thesacred site of Delium. The Boeotian besiegers drove off the defendersby developing a sort of flame-thrower: an early example of defensesstimulating new technologies of offense.22 The negotiations which ledto the Peace of Nicias were endangered by a drawn-out dispute overwho would be left in control of the fortress of Panactum on the Athenian­Boeotian border.23

The Periclean strategy left the Athenians secure behind their walls,and they maintained an offensive potential in- their navy. This combinationof security from assault and offensive capability seems to have contributedto Athenian belligerence, which some scholars have seen as a key factorin the origins of the war.24 Once war had broken out, Athenian securityand offensive capability were important factors in broadening the conflict.Athenian naval raids on the Peloponnese in the early years of the warmay have begun as reasoned responses to Spartan invasions of Attica.But the naval raids did .not have much effect, and the Athenians weresoon led to attempt more ambitious offensive endeavors. Between 429and 426, besides keeping up pressure on Megara and engaging indefensive operations in various theaters, the Athenians went on theoffensive in Aetolia, Thrace, Boeotia, Crete, Melos, and Sicily.25 Thegarrisoning of Pylos in 425 was a significant amplification of the navalraid strategy and, as we have seen, led to an expansion of the war. In415, during an interval of peace with Sparta, the Athenians voted to.attack Syracuse in Sicily.26 It was surely obvious to many Atheniansthat this action would lead to a renewal of war with the Peloponnesians.But the majority of Athenian voters seem not to have been particularlyconcerned about this. The success of the Periclean defensive strategy in

preventing the Spartans from exerting direct force upon the citizenryof Athens was surely an important factor in the Athenians' decision toinvade Sicily. The advocates of the Sicilian strategy were able to playupon the imperialistic ambitions of a population that imagined itselfimmune from enemy military might.

Thucydides' detailed narrative of the Sicilian expedition pointedlyunderscores how the Athenians themselves learned the hard lesson theyhad taught the Spartans: how difficult it was to storm a large, well­fortified city. The Athenian operations against Syracuse centered on anattempt to close off the Syracusans from their home territory, byconstructing a wall of circumvallation. Meanwhile, the Syracusans weresafe behind their own massive city fortifications, and they constructeda counter wall, which cut off the Athenian attempt to besiege the city.The Athenian army went largely on the defensive once the circumvallationstrategy failed. The ironic circle was closed when the Athenian besiegersfound themselves besieged, due to their inability to defend their ownfield fortifications from Syracusan counterattacks. 27

Meanwhile, in mainland Greece, the Spartans went on the offensive.In 413, taking a lesson from the Athenian occupation of Pylos, theyfortified and permanently garrisoned the Attic village of Decelea, 21kilometers north of the city of Athens. Most Athenians were now forcedto remain in the city year-round. For the first time, Athenians sufferedthe psychological miseries of an extended siege, even though food suppliesremained ample thanks to the secure port of Piraeus and the continuedsuperiority of Athenian sea power.28 The Spartan strategy of epiteichismos(constructing a garrison fort in enemy territory) was a logical responseto Athens' policy of urban defenses. The Decelea garrison allowed theSpartans to use their superior land army to control enemy territory, todestroy enemy extraurban resources in an organized manner, and therebyto step up the economic and psychological pressure on the Athenianstrapped inside the city.

A similar, indirect approach-deployment of military pressure againstenemy resources rather than enemy armies in order to circumvent astrategic defense for which no direct technological "solution" could bedevised-is evident in Sparta's use of naval forces during the Ionianphase of the Peloponnesian War. Like Brasidas in the late Archidamianphase of the war, Lysander and other Spartan commanders concentratedon undermining the strength of Athens' empire. The Spartan commandersrecognized that Athenian economic dependence on imperial revenuesand on the grain route from Egypt and the Black Sea was, in Clausewitzianterms, Athens' center of gravity.29 After Lysander's defeat of Athens'fleet at Aegospotamai in 405, the Athenians were deprived of vital grainsupplies. Bracketed by Lysander's fleet and the Decelea garrison, the

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city was starved into submission in 404. The Athenian city wall complexwas never overcome, indeed was never assaulted, but Pericles' strategicdefense system had been defeated by the simultaneous application ofindirect pressure by land and sea forces. The Spartan victory was sealedwhen, to the sound of flutes, the Athenian long walls were demilitarized.3D

For Thucydides, the fall of Athens was, at least in part, the fault ofthe "radical" democracy-the inability of the citizen Ropulation to deviseeffective policy after the death of wise and authoritarian Pericles. Theauthorization of the Sicilian expedition is his case in point. But Thucydides'description of the war and his analysis of the. relationship betweendefense policy and the play of power allow a different explanation: thatthe ideological effects of a strategy based on defense of the populationcarried the seeds of the system's own destruction. T.he effectiveness withwhich the fortified urban complex buffered the effects of Spartan militarymight upon the Athenian population led the Athenians to overestimatetheir own power vis-a-vis the power of their enemies and so to usetheir offensive naval capability to expand the conflict. Because thedefensive strategy initially stymied traditional Spartan tactics, the Ath­enians failed to consider that their enemies could develop strategies fordeploying offensive military force indirectly. Feeling secure behind theirmighty walls, the Athenians were persuaded to engage in imperialisticexpansionism that overtaxed their resources. Pericles' grand strategy ofdefense was brilliant and original but overrationalistic in its assumptions.He reckoned neither with the ideological effect of guaranteed securitycombined with offensive capability on the citizens of a democratic politynor with the inventiveness of offensive strategists who are faced withan unvarying challenge. Even the Spartans, slow as they may have beento change their ways, could and did figure out means to defeat a strategyof defense based on a fixed obstacle.

FORTRESS ATTICA (403-338 B.C.)

After regaining their independence in the mid-390s, the Athenianswere once again faced with the question of how to defend themselvesagainst superior land forces. The situation was very different from whatit had been in 431. With Persian support and a reviving economy, Athensmight hope to regain naval ascendancy in the Aegean, but-althoughmany Athe"nians dreamed of a second empire-the empire and its. revenueswere gone for good. With the loss of the empire, Athens becameeconomically dependent upon the production of her home territory. Theprotection of extraurban resources, especially the farms, quarries,. andsilver mines of Attica, became a primary policy consideration. Pericles'strategy of abandoning Attica was no longer economically feasible.31

Furthermore, international relations in the fourth century B.C. werecomplex and flUid. Lacking overwhelming military superiority, Athensnecessarily designed its foreign policy in the context of a highly volatilediplomatic matrix, one in which last year's allies might well be thisyear's enemies and vice versa. The shifting system of alliances was nodoubt bewildering to many Athenian citizens, who were urged by theirpolitical leaders to vote for treaties with recent enemies or to prepareto attack recent friends. 32 The volatility and uncertainty of the diplomaticsituation contributed to the preference of many Athenians for a newstrategy of preclusive defense, one that would ensure Athens' securityand would provide a constant on which other more ephemeral and high.risk diplomatic and military initiatives could be grounded.

Post-Peloponnesian War Greek military operations were quite so.phisticated and posed serious threats to local-and now vital-Atticresources. The Periclean defense strategy had made the PeloponnesianWar a testing ground for new offensive as well as defensive strategiesand tactics. The strength of fortified positions against direct assault hadbeen demonstrated time and again in the war. The primary offensivecounterstrategy devised by the Spartans was an indirect attack on theresources upon which the enemy depended. In the late fifth century,that had meant Athens' imperial holdings. Now, in the fourth century,Athens' enemies could use the strategy of making war upon economicassets, rather than upon armies, against the agricultural and mineralresources of Attica.33 The defensive lesson of the war-that well-fortifiedpositions could hold out indefinitely against superior forces-could beimplemented only if ways could be found to limit the effects of indirectattacks on economic assets.

The fluidity of the international situation, along with the need toprotect the resources of Attica, required a new approach to nationaldefense. The Athenians were unwilling to return to Pericles' city/navystrategy. But they maintained their conviction that a strategy of defendingthe population from attack by land, combined with offensive/defensivenaval capability, s~ould be at the center of state military policy. Theimplicit lesson of the Peloponnesian War-that new defensive strategieswould lead inevitably to new enemy offensive innovations-was ignored.The Athenians consequently expanded their land defense system toinclude all of Attica. The strategy of preclusively defending the city wasinflated to a strategy of preclusively defending the entirety of the hometerritory. It was not feasible to build a wall around the northern andwestern land frontiers of Attica, but these frontiers were mountainousand there were only a limited number of land routes into Athenianterritory available to enemy invaders. The Athenians reasoned thatblocking these routes by the construction of a line of fortresses should

260 Josiah Ober National Ideology and Strategic Defense 261

offer the same level of security for Attica as the circuit walls offeredfor the city. Blocking routes into Attica would protect not only thepopulation but also the economic resources of the countryside.34

Of course, defending a system of border fortifications required a morecomplex military infrastructure than did defending the walled urbancomplex, in light of the much greater distances involved. The borderfortresses controlling the land routes must be able to communicate witheach other and with the city; a recruitment system ';must be devised toensure adequate and dependable garrison troops to guard the forts; asystem for collecting and rapidly deploying reinforcements had to beinitiated; good roads from the center to the periphery were needed toallow reinforcements to move quickly between the city and the borders.In the decades after the end of the Peloponnesian War, each of theseconsiderations was addressed by the Athenians.

By the mid-fourth century Athen~ was defended by a series of borderfortresses and advance watchposts, so that the approach of enemy armiescould be detected well before their arrival at the border. Another seriesof watch stations provided communication (by mea~s of fire signals)between fortresses and from the borders to the city. The younger censusclasses of Athenian citizens (ephebes) were trained in the special skillsrequired for fighting in the mountainous borderlands and for defendingfortified positions. After training, ephebes were stationed at fortressesand watchposts as garrison troops. The system of calling up the mainAthenian army was streamlined so as to facilitate rapid mobilizationand deployment of reinforcements. Roads from the city to the frontierwere built or refurbished. A special "generalship of the countryside"was created so that there would be a competent official in charge ofthe new system, and the topic of "protection of the home territory"was added to the mandatory agenda of the ten annual principal meetingsof the citizen assembly.35 The construction of the system of land defensescorresponded to the growth of the navy. The Athenians viewed thefortification system as defensive; the navy was also regarded in primarilydefensive terms, but retained an offensive potential.36

The strategy of preclusive te~ritprial defense. was predicated upon theassumption that a fortress with a relatively small garrison could holdout against superior enemy forces for at l~ast as long as it took to getreinforcements to the frontier. In practical terms this meant at least 24­48 hours, maybe longer. The forts on the most vulnerable routes weremassively constructed, but the garrisons were not solely dependent uponthe innate strength of the walls. By the mid-fourth century the mostimportant of the Athenian border forts were defended by catapult artillery.The nontorsion (crossbow-style) catapult had been invented in 399 B.C.

in Syracuse, as an offensive siege weapon. 37 But non-torsion catapults

were essentially antipersonnel weapons; they were not powerful enoughto do significant damage to well-built fortifications. Furthermore, catapultswere delicate machines and their range was much increased by elevatingthem above ground level. Chambered towers on fortification walls couldprovide protection from the elements and elevation. Consequently, thenontorsion catapult was very well suited as a defensive weapon. Athenianforts built in the mid-fourth century incorporated towers specially de­signed as emplacements for catapults. The superior firepower that thecatapults afforded against enemy troops helped to guarantee the securityof fortress garrisons.38 ,

By the mid-fourth century the Athenians probably felt relatively securebehind their fortified line. The need to ~mport grain and her navaltradition ensured that Athens never became an isolationist state, but thefortification system offered the Athenians the luxury of deciding whenand under what conditions they would deploy Athenian military forcesoutside of Attica. Often the assembly decided that risking Athenian livesand spending Athenian cash resources in overseas or overland expeditionswere unnecessary. Some Athenian politicians warned the citizens notto waste too many of their resources outside Attica. Eubulus and thegeneral Phocion were, I believe, at the center of those Athenians whosaw the military interests of Athens in "Attica first" terms and urgedthe assembly to turn down proposals that would require a commitm~nt

of Athenian military power far from Athens' homeland.39

Not all Athenian politicians were convinced of the long-term efficacyof the territorial defense strategy. Demosthenes protested long and hardin the 340s against Athenian unwillingness to challenge Philip of Macedonmilitarily in northern Greece. Demosthenes argued that ignoring Philipwould result in the very thing the Athenians most feared: a war inAttica. Even if the enemy could be kept outside of Athens' borders,Demosthenes argued, an extended period of vigilance would exhaustAthens' resources more surely than would a surgical strike against Philipin his own homeland.40

Meanwhile, Philip's engineers were busy developing new artillerytechnology. In circa 350-340 B.C. they devised the torsion catapult, apotentially vastly more powerful machine which propelled stone shotor bolts by the spring action of twisted sinew or hair.41 By 332 Philip'sson, Alexander, ~as using powerful catapults with deadly effect againstthe very well-constructed defenses of Tyre.42 Furthermore, Philip's armywas much more skilled at siegecraft than was any previous Greek army. 43The combination of Philip'S trained army and the new technology quiteclearly would put Athens' border fortresses at risk if it came to all-outwar ,with Macedon. Athens' policy of defending Attica was underminedby Philip's tactical and technological advances.

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How soon should the Athenians have recognized the risk and deviseda different strategy of defense? This question cannot be answereddefinitively, as the answer depends on factors that are unknown andprobably unknowable: Philip's actual long-term intentions vis-A-vis thestates of central Greece; how powerful his torsion machines were in thelate 340s and early 330s; how soon the Athenians knew about thosemachines. But it seems a likely hypothesis that the defensive strategybased on the border fortification system blunted th~ fourth-centuryAthenians' interest in thinking through the implications of recent militarydevelopments. Having made the financial and emotional commitment toa defensive strategy that seemed to have "solved" the problem ofoffensive land warfare, the Athenians concentrated their attention onother matters.44 Despite Demosthenes' eloquence, therefore, they didlittle in the 340s to counter Philip's growing power in northern Greece.

In the end, the Athenians did recqgnize the threat and, spurred byDemosthenes, allied with the Thebans against Macedon. In 338, theAthenians sent out their full infantry levy to Chaeronea in Boeotia, wellin advance of the fortified line. But by the early 330s, Philip's armywas large enough and well enough trained to defeat the combined armiesof Thebes and Athens in open battle.45 Athens lost her independenceof foreign policy at Chaeronea. And that loss cannot be uncoupled fromthe defensive doctrine that had dominated Athenian military thoughtthrough most of the fourth century. The territorial defense system solvedthe main military security problems that had arisen as a result of theoffensive strategies developed during the Peloponnesian War. But as aconsequence, Athenian policymakers were slow to appreciate the sig­nificance of newer technological and strategic developments. Athenianslowness must be attributed in part to the psychological effects of thedefensive doctrine that the citizenry had embraced.

. CONCLUSIONS: POWER AND IDEOLOGY

Thucydides saw power as a force that flows from inequalities innational strength and recognized that when defenses distort the flowof power, the consequences are unpredictable. Michel Foucault arguedthat knowledge is ideological, that no one can think without employingthe assumptions of the community in which he lives. Foucault sawpower as a product of ideological knowledge: all social and politicalrelations are conditioned by the ways in which the pe9ple of a certaintime and place view reality. These insights can, I believe, be of keysignificance to international relations theory, even if we do not completelyaccept either Thucydides' or Foucault's views of power. CombiningThucydides and Foucault, I would suggest that the national ideology of

a major' state is likely to embrace that nation's right and duty to displayits power: the self-definition of citizens is likely to entail the perceptionthat they (or their proxies in the government) must retain the ability tomanifest national superiority by actual or potential deployment of force.

Any obstacle erected by another state which threatens to limit thepotential ability of a major state to deploy its power may threaten thatstate's internal political stability by introducing a new variable into theknowledge-power equation. The domestic regime of the USSR hastraditionally based its legitimacy in part on an ideology of nationalmilitary superiority. Thus, the internal regime is clearly at risk if thecitizenry comes to perceive its leadership as impotent in the face ofdefensive deployments by the United State~. Because Soviet leaders willrecognize this threat to their position, and because they themselves viewinternational relations through an ideological filter invisible to themselves,they are likely to respond to an SDI deployment by putting pressureupon Soviet scientists, engineers, and military strategists to come upwith a quick "solution" to the SDI "blockage." The solution must offera means to balance, circumvent, or destroy the "shield" and so restoreSoviet potential to deploy power. This government pressure will leadto a concentration of the USSR's intellectual and material resources uponbreaking the SOL Since the obstacle facing Soviet scientists will be a"fixed target"-as all strategic population defenses must be-a way tocircumvent SOl will probably be devised, although only after thecommitment of considerable resources. The ideological effects of con­fronting the SOl blockage and expending resources to eliminate it, alongwith a general fear that the United States may soon find a way toredesign its defenses against the new offensive strategy, may encouragethe Soviet leadership to be ruthless in using that offensive strategy assoon as it has been p~rfected. The strategic innovations devised by theordinarily conservative Spartans in the Peloponnesian War and theincreasingly savage treatment of combatants and civilians in that warcan be explained in these terms.

A grand strategy of defending the population will also affect thenational ideology of the state which has adopted the defensive strategy.No sane military planner has ever believed that a comprehensive andself-sustaining defensive shield can be constructed that will totally andpermanently protect the population of the home state against any andall levels of security threat. Even the most optimistic proponents of, forexample, the French Maginot Line knew that the defensive system couldnot afford perfect safety. But, given the huge expense of implementinga strategic defense system, it is typically politically necessary to "oversell"the system to the population that will be asked to foot the bill. Thesuccessful campaign by French military experts and politicians to market.

264 Josiah Ober National Ideology and Strategic Defense 265

the idea of the Maginot Line to the French public in the late 1920s and1930s is a case in point.46 In order to be accepted by the voting public,the defensive system must be touted as more effective, more permanent,and more self-sustaining than it could possibly be designed to be.

In certain circumstances (as in the case of Athens after the Pelo­ponnesian War and France after World War I), the citizenry of a democraticstate will be predisposed to believe that preclusive defense of the hometerritory is desirable and so will be inclined to accept the "total" versionof the defensive system as feasible. But, having voted for it (or itsproponents) and having paid for it, the citizenry will naturally expectto enjoy the promised benefits. Citizens who have been assured thatthe problem of offensive warfare has been solved are not likely to takekindly to subsequent revisions in the original estjmate of the defensivesystem's effectiveness. And, once the expensive system has been com­pleted, they may feel that they are ~entitled to a corresponding reductionin other sorts of military expenditure. Canny politicians will not beeager to puncture the balloon; braver ones will .be ignored. The result,as in the case of the Athenians in the fourth century B.C., is likely tobe a national reluctance to acknowledge the reality of technological orstrategic advances which undermine the reliability of the defensive system.Alternatively, since they believe themselves fully protected from thethreat of enemy retaliation, the citizenry of the defended state thatmaintains an offensive capability may be more willing to listen topoliticians who advocate escalating overt deployment of military forceagainst other states. Such was the situation in Athens in the PeloponnesianWar and perhaps also in the mid-fifth century when the long wallswere built to Piraeus. Such could also be the case in the United States,even if we take SDI proponents at their word and assume that thesystem does not mask an offensive strategic policy.

The ideological impacts of a grand strategy of defending the citizenryare, in sum, likely to be powerful-both on the defending state andupon its opponents. Those ideological impacts are destabilizing to in­ternational power regimes. Given that SDI will be extremely expensive,that the U~ited States is likely to maintain an offensive potential evenafter putting 501 into place, and that the ability to deploy power issurely a significant element in the national ideology of the Soviet Union,the deployment of SDI holds the potential to undermine the existinginternational regime. Significantly, in the proposed model, destabilizationneed not necessarily be the product of an actual desire on either sideto upset the balance of power. Planners who ignore ideological factorsin their own, their nation's, and their opponents' thinking may makeserious miscalculations in the erroneous belief that their own goals arecompletely rational and that their assessment of their opponents' intentions

are objectively realistic. The history of democratic Athens' experimentationwith two versions of strategic population defense suggests that the long­term ideological effects of building and deploying an SDI system, onAmerican and Soviet citizens and policymakers alike, will have con­sequences that cannot and will not be accurately assessed by either side.Ironically, the better the system is perceived to be working (in termsof defending the U.S. populace), the greater the ideological impact onboth sides will be-and the greater becomes the threat of destabilizat:on.

NOTES

1. Reagan's speech: U.S. State Dept. Bulletin; vol. 83, no. 2073 (Washington,D.C.: GPO, 1983), pp. 8-14. The comments of many contributors to this volumewere useful in the reworking of this essay; special thanks are due to MatthewEvangelista, Barry Strauss, Ned Lebow, and George Forrest.

2. See Ballistic Missile Defense and U.S. National Security: A Summary ReportPrepared for Future Security Strategy Study in Strategic Defense and Anti-SatelliteWeapons, Hearing before the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate(Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1984), pp. 125-140; cited in G.M. Steinberg, Lost inSpace: The Domestic Politics of the Strategic Defense Initiative (Lexington, MA:Lexington Books, 1988), pp. 4-5.

3. This "total" version of 501 was epitomized by a television advertisementin animated cartoon form (sponsored by a private pro-SOl group) which airedin the mid-1980s: A kindly father demonstrates to his anxious children that thedefense network is an impenetrable "rainbow umbrella." Atomic weapons areshown exploding harmlessly against the umbrella as the family watches thedisplay with reverent fascination. Cf. discussion by S.J. Hadley, "The Nature ofSDI," in H. Brown (ed.), The Strategic Defense Initiative: Shield or Snare? (Boulder,CO: Westview Press, 1987), p. 21. For a fantasy scenario of how a perfect "peaceshield" would work,' see, for example, Be·n Bova, Assured Survival: Putting theStar Wars Defense in Perspective (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1984), pp. 271­274.

4. For further discussion of the realist position and its critics see the chaptersby Michael W. Doyle and Matthew Evangelista in this book.

S. On the uniqueness of nuclear-era strategic challenges, see Robert Jarvis,The Illogic of American Nuclear Strategy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,1984), who argues .against "conventionalization" defined as "the attempt tounderstand our world by employing the intellectual tools of the prenuclear era"(p. 14).

6. For further discussion of ideology, see J. Cber, Mass and Elite in DemocraticAthens: Rhetoric, Ideology, and the Power of the People (Princeton, NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1989). Foucault's clearest discussion of discur~ive power isprobably in the collection of lectures and interviews published as Power/Knowledge,Colin Gordon (ed.) (New York: Pantheon Books, 1980); see also The History ofSexuality, Volume 1 : An Introduction, Robert Hurley (trans.) (New York: Random

·. "

266 Josiah Ober National Ideology and Strategic Defense 267

House, 1978). Hayden White, The Content of the Form (Baltimore, MD: JohnsHopkins University Press, 1987), pp. 104-141, offers a concise introduction toFoucault's theories of knowledge and power and a bibliography of importantworks by Foucault. Cf. the essays on Foucault's theory of power by DavidCouzens Hoy, Edward W. Said, and Barry Smart in Foucault: A Critical Reader,David Couzens Hoy (ed.) (Oxford: B. Blackwell, 1986).

7. E.g., Thuc. 1.80-81 (speech of Archidamus), 2.62 (speech of Pericles); 4.12;cf. Chester G. Starr, "Thucydides on Sea Power," Mnemosyne 31 (1979), pp.

343-350.8. See, for example, H.D. Westlake, "Sea-borne Raids in Periclean Strategy,"

Classical Quarterly 39 (1945), pp. 75-84.9. Thuc. 5.14.3. Cf. J. Ober, "Thucydides, Pericles, and the Strategy of Defense,"

in J.W. Eadie and J. Ober (eds.), The Craft of the Ancient Historian: Essays inHonor of Chester G. Starr (lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1985), pp.171-188, at p. 3 with n. 5. .

10. Y. Garlan, Recherches de poliorcetique grecque (Athens: Ecole fran~aise

d'Athenes, 1974), pp. 105-147.11. On the walls of Athens and Piraeus', see R.E. Wycherley, The Stones of

Athens (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978), pp. 7-25; Robert Garland,The Piraeus (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987), pp. 14-28.

12. See R. Lonis, Guerre et religion en Grece d l'epoque classique (Paris: Belleslettres, 1979), pp. 25-40; and especially Victor O. Hanson, The Western Way ofWar (New York: Knopf, 1989).

13. Thuc. 1.143.5, 2.66.7.14. Thuc. 2.16.2, 2.21-22.15. Thuc. 1.2.2-5, 1.5.1, 1.7.1.16. Thuc. 2.65.13.17. E.g., Thuc. 3.82-84 (Corcyrean civil war), 5.84-116 (MeHan Dialogue).

The river metaphor is mine, but I believe it catches the essence of Thucydides'

view of power.18. E.g., Thuc. 1.78 (speech of Athenian envoys at Sparta).19. Thuc. 2.18-19, 2.75-78, 3.20-24, 3.52.20. Thuc. 3.3-41.21. Thuc. 4.78-88, 4.102-116.22. Thuc. 4.90, 4.100-101.23. Thuc. 5.40.1,5.42; cf. Thomas Kelly, "Cleobulus, Xenares, and Thucydides'

Account of the Demolition of Panactum," Historia 21 (1972), pp. 159-169.24. For views on the origins of the war, see the chapters by Barry S. Strauss,

Marta Sordi, and Richard Ned Lebow in this book.25. Thuc. 2.79, 2.85, 3.86, 3.91 3.94-102, 3.115.26. Thuc. 6.8-26.27. Thuc. 6.63-7.15, 7.21-26, 7.31-84. Cf. Ober, "Thucydides," pp. 176-177.

28. Thuc. 7.19, 7.27-28.29. Spartan strategy: J. Ober, Fortress Attica: Defense of the Athenian Land

Frontier, 404-322 B.C., Mnemosyne Supplement 84 (Leiden: E.I. Brill, 1985), pp.

35-37.

30. Defeat of Athens, demilitarization of the walls: Xenophon, Hellenica 2.1.15­2.2.23.

31. Ober, Fortress Attica, pp. 13-31.32. Fluidity of diplomacy: D.J. Mosley, "On Greek Enemies Becoming Allies,"

Ancient Society 5 (1974), pp. 43-50, especially p. 48. Political leadership: Ober, ,Mass and Elite, passim.

33. Ober, Fortress Attica, pp. 37-50.34. Ibid., pp. 111-180.35. Ibid., pp. 87-100, 191-207. .36. Ibid. On the strategic uses of the navy, see Chester G. Starr, The Influence

of Sea Power on Ancient History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp.46-49; G.l. Cawkwell, "Athenian Naval Power in the Fourth Century," ClassicalQuarterly 34 (1984), pp. 334-345; J. Ober, "Views of Sea Power in the Fourth­Century Attic Orators," The Ancient World 1 (t'978), pp. 119-130.

37. E.W. MarSden, Greek and Roman Artillery, 2 vols. (Oxford:·Oxford UniversityPress, 1969, 1971), vol. 1, pp. 5-16, 48-56; W. Soedel and V. Foley, "AncientCatapults," Scientific American (M~rch 1979), p. 150.

38. J. Ober, "Early Artillery Towers: Messenia, Boiotia, Attica, Megarid,"American Journal of Archaeology 91 (1987), pp. 569-604.

39. Cf. Ober, Fortress Attica, pp. 65, 215-216.40. See, for example, Demosthenes' three speeches on Olynthus (nos. 1-3)

and his four Philippics (nos. 4, 6, 9, 10) with comments of Ober, Fortress Attica,pp. ~8-59, 65, 73-74.

41. Marsden, Greek and Roman Artillery, vol. 1, pp. 16-24, 99-108, 116-117;Soedel and Foley, "Ancient Catapults," pp. 150, 153-154.

42. Diodorus Siculus 17.43.7, 17.45.2; with the comments of Marsden, 'Greekand Roman Artillery, vol. 1, pp. 61-62, 102-103.

43. G.l. Cawkwell, Philip of Macedon (london: Faber & Faber, 1978), 161­163; Garlan, Recherches, pp. 201 H.

44. Ober, Fortress Attica, p. 222.45. The battle: N.G.l. Hammond, "The Two Battles of Chaeronea (338 B.C.

and 86 B.C.)," Klio 31 (1938), pp. 186-218. M.M. Markle, "Use of the Sarissaby Philip and Alexander of Macedon," American Journal of Archaeology 82 (1978),pp. 483-497, suggests that the development of the sarissa (long pike) and itsuse as a cavalry weapon by Philip was a key element in the Macedonian victory.

46. On the "selling" of the Maginot Line, see R.A. Doughty, The Seeds ofDisaster: The Development of French Army Doctrine, 1919-1939 (Hamden, CT:Archon Books, 1985), pp. 41-71; S. Ryan, Petain the Soldier (Cranbury, NJ: A.S.Bames and Co., 1969), pp. 245-275, especially 271-273; A. Kemp, The MaginotLine: Myth and Reality (Briarcliff Manor, NY: Stein and Day, 1982), pp. 55-63.